


Secrets To Success For (After)Life With Roommates

by sweetestsight



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Crack, Halloween Inspired, Happy Ending, Humor, M/M, Only slashy if you squint, character death but its a ghost au so you know, ghost au, pairings might come later, really fuckin soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-11-26 22:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20937983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetestsight/pseuds/sweetestsight
Summary: Three ghosts haunt a flat in London. John is just looking for cheap student housing. This is their story.





	1. Chapter 1

_“Yeah, so you could say that I’m not really the most scary ghost, I suppose. Well, you’ve got a couple different types, you know? You’ve got Fred. He’s really one of the last Bohemians I know. He was meant to be haunting Oscar Wilde or something. Maybe he was meant to be Oscar Wilde. I don’t know. Actually, I don’t really know much about Oscar Wilde in general. I studied science, so…I don’t know, my point is, Freddie will haunt you with all the moaning and groaning and distant piano music coming from the basement. Roger likes to make things go boom. I think of myself as the more rational of the three of us.” _

* * *

“Fuck!” Brian yelps as he trips over the leg of the coffee table.

The man sitting in their living room pales. “Did you see that?” he gasps.

His wife, a dirty blond woman of stubbornly short height, reels back. “The table moved,” she hisses.

The man’s name is Jeffery. The woman, his wife, is known as Lauren. The three phantoms of the flat know this because they’ve lived with them for one month now. In fact, they know practically everything about Jeffrey and Lauren.

They know that Lauren hates London and wants to move back to…somewhere in the States. They know Jeffery is generally unsatisfied with life and figures if he’s always going to be unsatisfied he might as well do it in Europe. They aren’t sure where Jeffrey works but it sounds horrible.

Okay, so maybe they don’t know everything, but they know enough.

Either way, Lauren and Jeffrey had jumped at the chance to move into this flat. They’d loved the three spacious bedrooms on the third floor. They’d loved the second floor with it’s beautiful living room, modern kitchen and glamorous study complete with a baby grand piano. They’d even loved the ground floor entryway and the storage room off to the side that literally nobody likes. The fact that the flat was highly rumored to be haunted was only a slight problem for them.

Only slight, and that’s the problem. Despite all the gentle nudging the three of them have provided, Jeffrey and Lauren won’t _leave._

Brian keeps drawing pentagrams in the steam on the bathroom mirror whenever one of them is in the shower. Freddie has been singing them the theme from _Phantom of the Opera _ominously for weeks now. Roger likes to blow gently in their ears as they’re falling asleep. It doesn’t matter. Nothing is working.

Or maybe not _nothing._ At this point the couple is so sleep deprived that even the slightest thing will probably push them over the edge.

Like Brian tripping over the coffee table, for instance.

Brian rolls his eyes. “I’d put it back in place if you wouldn’t jump out of your skin over it.”

“They wouldn’t be jumping out of their skin over it if you weren’t so fucking clumsy,” Roger mutters from where he’s sprawled on the couch, watching the proceedings with a vague sort of interest.

“Sorry Roger,” Brian says politely. “What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you want to repeat it?”

“No.”

“Children, please,” Freddie calls from the kitchen.

“You’re not my real mom,” Roger calls back dryly.

“Roger, don’t speak to your mother that way,” Brian says.

“I’ll speak to her how I want.”

“Excuse me, young man?” Freddie shouts. “I’ll have you know I pay for this building! I put a roof over your head and all I want from you is some _goddamned respect—_”

He slams his palm down on the counter for emphasis as he says it, and Lauren lets out a yelp. “Oh, god. Jeffrey, did you hear that?”

“It was just the wind,” Jeffrey says shakily, rubbing a gummy-looking hand over his equally gummy-looking bald spot. 

“Just the wind?” Roger asks dryly. “Are they serious?”

“It sounded like a gunshot,” Lauren says insistently.

“Lauren,” Jeffrey says soothingly, though he’s growing increasingly pale, “It’s alright. The landlord said some strange occurrences have happened here in the last few years, but nobody’s ever been hurt. We have nothing to worry about.”

“Honestly, you guys,” Freddie says dryly, stepping into the doorway of the kitchen. “Is anyone tired of this? People coming in here and insisting that there’s nothing to worry about?”

“I’m a little offended,” Roger says.

“Guys,” Brian tells them. “Come on now. Maybe we should stop scaring people away like this.”

“Why?”

“Well, I don’t want to gain a reputation. If people know for certain that this place is haunted they’ll come in flocks, won’t they? Besides, it isn’t right to keep terrifying people. We want to be gentle.”

“Seriously? We were here first. How’s _that _for not right?”

“Well, they’re the ones paying rent.”

“So? I have a grown ass man and his wife sleeping in _my_ room right now, eating _my _porridge—”

“And he’s sitting in your chair too, I take it?”

“Calm down, Goldilocks,” Freddie cuts in. “Nobody’s eating your porridge. Hell, you don’t even have any porridge anymore. What, like you’re gonna be the one eating it? Newsflash, blondie. You’re dead.”

“…That was hurtful,” Roger says quietly. Freddie scoffs.

“Jeffrey,” Lauren says, “I know we only just moved in, but what if we went back to the States for a little while? We haven’t seen your mom in a while, right? I miss her and—this house has the most hostile energy I’ve ever encountered in my life.”

“Relax, babe,” Jeffrey says. “It’s just a little wind, right? This is a beautiful flat. We were lucky to find it fully-furnished at the price that we did.”

“Okay, fuck this,” Roger says. “For real. Fuck it. I don’t want to share a room with them.”

“Roger—” Brian starts.

“No. No, shut up. There is no way there’s enough space for five people in here.”

“Roger, calm down.”

“You want me to calm down?! I’m the one stuck with your ass for all eternity in this shitty student flat—”

“Hey!”

“—And I’m not about to just _calm down_ over it! I mean, look at these losers!” he adds, jabbing a finger at where Lauren and Jeffrey are doing their best not to cower on the couch. “Do you seriously want to live with them?”

“Does it feel like it just got really cold to you?” Lauren asks.

Jeffrey shakes his head, eyes wide. “It’s just a draft.”

“Fuck this! And fuck them!” Roger screams.

A lightbulb in one of the lamps bursts. Lauren screams.

“Roger!” Freddie scolds. “Look what you’ve done!”

Roger looks at him defiantly. The light in the kitchen explodes and the room goes dark.

“I’m not staying here!” Lauren cries. “Dammit, Jeffrey! I’m going back to Fresno!”

She runs out of the room, feet clattering down the stairs.

“Lauren! Wait!” Jeffrey yells. He runs after her. The flat shakes slightly as the front door slams behind them.

Freddie sighs heavily. “Now look what you’ve done,” he says. “Who’s going to clean up this mess, anyway? Huh? You?”

“I don’t have the energy to lift a broom right now,” Roger complains.

“Oh? But you have the psychic will to go around exploding lightbulbs?” He huffs and stomps up the stairs, willing the sounds of heavy footfalls to echo through the house for good measure.

Brian sighs and turns to Roger, disappointment etched on his permanently youthful face. “Way to go, Rog.”

“You’re serious,” Roger says flatly. “You seriously wanted to live with those assholes.”

“It’s better than being alone with you for the rest of time,” Brian mutters under his breath, stalking off toward the study.

Roger glares after him. “Believe me, I’m not so cheered to be stuck with you forever either!” He calls after him.

Brian doesn’t answer.

Roger huffs and flops back onto the couch.

* * *

_“My style? Well darling, I’ve always loved the supernatural. Always, ever since I was a boy. So I do love a bit of the occult now and then, and I understand that people would think that’s redundant what with the lifestyle we live and all. The truth is that it just never gets old. It doesn’t matter how long you’re an undead ghoul cursed to stay attached to the realm of mortals. Haunting never gets old.”_

* * *

“Did you hear that?” Freddie asks, looking between the two of them with wide eyes.

Brian sighs and puts his cards face-down on the table. “If you’re trying to cheat again—”

“No! Listen! I can feel it now, too.”

Roger freezes. “Someone’s at the door.”

Freddie nods silently at him.

“I guess resting in peace is a thing of the past,” Brian says tiredly. “Fine, then. Who is it?”

“Kids, it sounds like,” Roger says. “Two of them. No, three. They picked the lock.”

“Smart kids.”

“They’re coming up the stairs.”

“Well, I guess we better see what they want, huh?”

The three of them stand and walk into the living room. Brian turns out the light as they go. It’s always best to save on electricity when you can.

“I’m telling you!” a childish voice is saying. The childish voice belongs to a small human wearing a ski coat. Freddie’s nose wrinkles. Children. “I saw a light on when we were down in the street!”

“Well, it’s off now,” a second voice says. The owner of this voice is wearing a fleece.

“I know! Someone could be here!”

“Nobody’s here.”

“Prove it.”

Ski Coat rolls his eyes. “Hello?” he calls loudly.

“It’s me,” Roger warbles dramatically. “I was wondering if after all these years you’d like to—” He wheezes loudly as Brian elbows him hard in the ribs.

The third child, this one donning a battered and oversized Imperial sweatshirt, frowns. “Did you guys hear that?”

“Hear what?” the other two chorus.

“I don’t know. It sounded almost like a cough or something.”

“Don’t be a little bitch,” Ski Coat snaps.

“Yeah,” Fleece chimes in. “Don’t be a little bitch.” She digs through her backpack and after a moment’s search triumphantly produces an Ouija board. “Do you guys want to play or what?”

“Oh my god,” Freddie squeals. “Brian, look!”

Brian looks up from where he’s supporting a still-wheezing Roger. “What?”

“They brought us a present!” He gestures at where the kids are setting up the board on the table and lighting a cluster of candles around it.

“We shouldn’t be messing with guests like this. We don’t want undue attention.”

“Undue attention? This is them asking us to communicate with them! It’s an invitation to have some fun, if you ask me.”

“He’s right,” Roger gasps. He pushes Brian away and stumbles over to the table. “God, Brian. You almost killed me a second time with that.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Brian says. “I barely touched you.”

“Children,” Freddie starts. “Hush. The show is about to start.”

The three children sit down on the couch, touching the planchette lightly. Imperial clears her throat. “If there are any spirits here today, please make yourselves known.”

Roger wanders closer, taking a seat on the other side of the table. “It’s kind of rude of them not to offer us the couch,” he says. He grabs the planchette between two fingers and drags it to _Yes_. The children gasp.

Brian sighs and wanders over, sitting down cross-legged beside him.

Freddie seats himself on his other side, clapping his hands like an excited child. “Oh, this’ll be so fun.”

“Don’t go too hard on them, Fred,” Brian says.

“You’re just saying that because you like her shirt.”

“Maybe I do. What about it?”

“Just because she’s representing your Alma Mater does _not_ mean—”

Imperial clears her throat. “What is your name?”

The three of them are silent for a beat.

“What do we say?” Roger asks. “There are three of us. Should we just…just make one up or something?”

“We could combine them all,” Freddie offers. “Fre…Fregeran?”

“Broggie?” Brian offers.

“You realize I’m gonna need to spell this, right?” Roger says.

“Oh, just tell them our name is…I don’t know, what’s a short name?”

“Ed?”

“Yeah, Ed.”

Roger dutifully drags the planchette to the _E_ and then the _D._

Ski Coat gasps. “Ed.”

“Wow, he can spell,” Freddie mutters.

Ski Coat clears his throat. “Alright. Ed, thank you for talking with us.”

“I wish this thing had emojis on it,” Roger says. “I’d love to just keep giving him the thumbs up or something.”

“Poop emoji,” Freddie supplies.

Roger snickers.

“Ed,” Ski Coat says. “How did you die?”

“What should we go with?” Roger asks.

“Murder?” Freddie supplies.

“Oh, I don’t want to spell that.”

“Seriously?”

“It’s not my fault this thing weighs about a million tonnes. I broke out in a sweat just trying to spell Ed.”

“You can’t sweat,” Brian tells him. “You’re dead.”

“I know _that._”

“Ed?” Fleece asks uncertainly.

Freddie sighs. “Fine. I’ll do it.” Painstakingly he spells out _M-U-R-D_

“Murder?!” Imperial cries. “Is he spelling out murder?!”

“See?” Brian says. “I knew it. She’s the smart one.”

“Oh, whoop-de-doo,” Roger says. “She can spell a disyllabic word.”

“I doubt you can even spell disyllabic.”

“Want me to spell it out with the planchette for you?”

Freddie gasps as he reaches the _R._ “Jesus Christ, this thing is heavy.”

“I told you,” Roger says primly.

“Ed,” Ski Coat asks shakily. “Who murdered you?”

“Now, see, that’s a tough question,” Roger says. “We could feasibly frame someone right now if we wanted to.”

“What’s the right answer?” Brian asks.

“Boris Johnson?”

“That’s definitely illegal, Rog.”

“Oh, boo hoo. Who’s gonna come arrest us?”

“It’s weird, actually,” Freddie chimes in. “I can’t for the life of me remember who did kill me. Or us, rather.”

“I thought we died in an accident,” Brian says.

“What accident?”

Brian opens his mouth to answer, then freezes. “I can’t remember,” he says after a beat. “I’d never thought of it before now, even. You’d think you’d remember something like that. Aren’t we supposed to be able to remember?”

Roger frowns to himself. “Well, this would’ve been a great time for one of us to get justice. I suppose that ship has sailed, huh?”

“Unless we meet some more young ghosthunters at some point.”

“Mmh.”

Freddie’s brow furrows. Tongue stuck between his teeth, he spells out _I-D-K._

“Idk,” Imperial breathes. “He doesn’t know.”

“Very modern ghost we have on our hands,” Fleece mutters.

“Ed,” Ski Coat says somberly, “are you still trapped on this mortal plane because your murderer has not been found? Would you like us to help you find your killer?”

Imperial slaps his arm. “We can’t do that! We’re just kids!”

“She’s definitely the smart one,” Brian says.

“What do you want us to do?” Ski Coat snaps. “We can’t just leave him here to suffer!”

Roger grabs the planchette. With all his power he drags it quickly to _Yes._

Brian stares at him. “What the hell did you do that for?”

“For fun?” Roger asks. “Uh. Idk.”

“Seriously?!”

“Ed, we will find your killer and bring you justice,” Ski Coat says heavily. “Can you tell us if you have any known enemies? Anyone who wants to kill you?”

Roger moves the planchette briefly away and then back onto _Yes._

“Who?” Fleece breathes.

“Oh, I don’t have a good answer for that,” Roger sighs. “Anyone?”

“No,” Brian says.

“What do you say?” Roger asks. “Time for a light show?”

“Agreed,” Freddie says. He leans forward and blows out all the candles, plunging the room into darkness.

The room is still for one long minute, the only sound the labored breathing of the three children seated across from them. Then Roger gets up and turns the kitchen light on.

Three heads snap around to stare at it.

“Explode the bulb again,” Brian says. “It’s much more dramatic.”

“Oh, now you want me to explode it?” Roger snaps.

“Yes!”

“Why don’t you do it?”

“Roger, neither of us are any good at bursting glass the way you are.”

“You’ve never tried. Go on, give it a go.”

“What do I do?”

“Just picture it kind of crunching in your fist, I guess.”

Brian frowns and squeezes his eyes shut. They snap open a moment later as the bulb shatters and the children scream, and a triumphant grin reaches his face. “Oh, that’s kind of fun.”

“Let me try it, then,” Freddie says.

Roger flicks on the study light. “Freddie, try this one.”

Freddie frowns and focuses.

_Boom. _

_Scream._

“Give me another, Rog,” Freddie laughs.

Roger flicks on the stairwell light on the second floor.

_Boom. _

“Let’s get out of here! Come on!” Imperial yells.

“Knew she was the smart one,” Brian says.

The three children sprint quickly down the stairs, leaving the spirits alone with nothing but a flat full of shattered lightbulbs.

* * *

_“In ghost terms I’d say I’m probably a force to be reckoned with. Yeah, I mean, I’m pretty brutal, really. Some people go more for subtlety but I’m not really like that. If you step into my home you’re going to know that I’m the top dog here and I’m all bite. I mean, why should I be nice? This is my fuckin’ house.” _

* * *

Roger is sprawled on the couch and finishing up day six of his EastEnders marathon when a group of young men kick the front door in and enter the apartment.

They carry two boxes of beer with them, and the unsightly young man in the front already has a bottle open in his hand. He laughs and blows a stream of cotton candy-flavored vapor into the room.

“Absolutely fucking not,” Roger mutters.

The beer bottle explodes in the man’s hand. The group screams and runs back down the stairs.

* * *

_“Company? Not really, no. I’d say I love to keep to myself. It’s easier to focus when you’re on your own and you have a little bit of privacy. Besides, I’ve got all the company I could ever want with these two buffoons.” _

* * *

On day seven of Roger’s EastEnders marathon ghost hunters arrive at the flat.

“Fuck’s sake,” Freddie breathes at the Scrabble board.

“You can’t say I’m cheating again,” Brian insists. “That’s a word. You can look it up.”

“Oh, two turns ago you were also insisting that ‘bedlams’ is a word—”

“It is a word! Plural of ‘bedlam’!”

“Bedlam doesn’t have a plural, you dolt—”

“Guys!” Roger shouts.

Two ghosthunters are lingering in the doorway of the living room.

“Fuck,” Brian says.

“Well, this is the place alright,” one of the ghosthunters says. He’s a man, and Brian isn’t sure he can identify his accent.

The woman behind him stomps through the shattered glass in the doorway with her platform-heeled combat boots. “Lot of weird stories circulating about this flat,” she says.

“And all relatively new.”

“Uh,” Roger says. “Guys, what’s the play here?”

“I’m not sure,” Freddie says. “Are we trying to spook them, or should we just lay low?”

“Dunno. I’ve always wanted to be on the telly.”

“I say we spook them, then.”

“If we lay low they won’t send more camera crews in after this one,” Brian reasons. “I don’t want to deal with tourists for the rest of our afterlives, either.”

“Lay low, then?”

“Who’s the EastEnders fan?” the woman asks with a frown.

The man taps one of the strange devices strapped to his chest. “Hey, turn that off, yeah? That thing’s really messing with the EMF.”

She picks up the remote and flicks the telly off.

“Hey!” Roger yelps.

The man sits down heavily on the couch and lands directly on Roger’s stomach.

Roger flickers out of existence only to reappear in the kitchen. He splutters for a long moment. “The fuck!” he settles on finally. “Did you see that?”

“She turned your telly off,” Brian says patronizingly.

“Fucking sat on me is what she did!” Roger cries. “In me, rather! Fuck, I feel all—all violated!”

“I’m picking up EMF in here,” the woman says, walking toward the study.

“Fuck lying low, I say,” Roger hisses. “I say we take ‘em. We can do it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Brian murmurs.

The woman paces closer to Freddie’s piano.

“She better not—” Freddie starts.

She begins brushing the odd sensor along the keys. Experimentally she hits a few of the black keys, then busts out an ear-grating version of chopsticks. “Hey, this doesn’t sound half bad,” she calls.

“Oh goddamn,” Freddie says, deathly quiet. “She didn’t just touch my baby like that. I know I imagined that just happen.”

The man in the living room catches sight of the textbook Brian had left open on the coffee table.

“What do you say, Bri?” Freddie asks. “That’s two cardinal sins. I say it’s time to do a bit of haunting.”

Brian sighs into his scrabble tiles. “I’d really rather not get involved,” he says quietly. “You know it’s for the best in the long run if we don’t.”

The man closes the textbook.

Brian freezes. “Tell me he marked that page.”

“Nope,” Roger says, popping the p. “No he did not.”

“Hey, astrophysics,” the man calls. “Ever met a nerd ghost before?”

None of the three undead residents of the flat can remember quite what happens after that.

All they can say was when all was said and done not a single lightbulb or mirror in the house remained unshattered, the temperature in the living room had dropped so low that the windows had frozen over, the scrabble board bore some frankly horrific messages spelled out in tiny wooden tiles, and Freddie had figured out how to set small fires with his mind, thus tragically murdering one of their living room curtains.

“Well,” Brian says succinctly, standing in the middle of the carnage. “I suppose that just happened.”

“I suppose it did,” Freddie says.

For lack of better things to do Roger turns the telly back on and resumes his marathon of EastEnders.

* * *

_“I don’t want to say that it’s all haunting and the like. Really it can get quite dull. We don’t have much to do. You spend all of your life wishing you had more time to relax, and then you get there and you think, well. What am I going to do now?”_

* * *

There’s no saying how long the flat goes unoccupied. It’s well and truly odd how time blurs together in the afterlife. Freddie was half-expecting to be wiling away the hours wishing he had the psychic energy to play his piano one second, and looking up the next minute to find that the year was 2548 and time had well and truly passed them by.

Nonetheless he keeps a steady gaze on the windows outside, doodling in an old notebook he found in the study to keep track of time, and as the leaves begin to fall the dust begins to collect. The flat looks well and truly haunted, now. The debris of their last fit hadn’t been cleaned up and dust is gathering over it like frost.

* * *

_“We thought that was the end, you know? We thought we’d be left alone for good. I’d wished for that at the time. But heavens, darling, could you imagine? I suppose I know better now.” _

* * *

After their fourth month of solitude the padlock on the front door rattles.

Freddie’s head snaps up from his notebook. He meets Roger’s eyes over the dining table. “Is that…”

The front door swings open. Slow, heavy footsteps start up the stairs.

“You’re right,” Roger says. “Someone’s here.”

“Who do you think it is? Hunters?”

“It’s likely, after last time,” Brian supplies.

“It better not be.”

“I suppose we’ll find out.”

“They sound huge, whoever they are. Suppose they can fight a ghost?”

“Oh, we’ll take them,” Roger says defiantly.

The footsteps stop outside the door to the living room. Slowly the door creaks open, and the three of them brace themselves.

A scrap of a young man steps through—staggers, more like. The suitcase he’s carrying is easily as big as he is, and that’s not counting the backpack, multiple boxes and what looks like a guitar case all trailing up the stairs after him. He’s looking around the apartment with wide green eyes, stepping gingerly over the glass in the doorway. He purses his lips for a long moment.

Finally, hesitantly, he smiles.


	2. Chapter 2

The man—_boy_, really, since he barely even looks old enough to be in Uni and his face is still vaguely soft with youth, despite how his long brown hair tries to hide that fact—is most likely insane.

The first thing he does is drag all of his bags all the way up the stairs. The second thing he does is whip out a vacuum.

He cleans every inch of the flat. Well, almost every inch. The floors are cleaned until they’re spotless. The couch and the chairs are all vacuumed to perfection. The burnt curtains are replaced with clean new ones. The bathroom is scrubbed.

The bookshelves are lightly dusted but otherwise left alone.

He gives the coffee table a long glance and then carefully removes everything on its surface, scrubs it down and replaces all of the items in exactly the places he found them. Brian watches like a hawk, but even his books are returned on the exact same pages that they were left.

Over the course of the day the three roommates decide that the man is an oddity.

He replaces all the lightbulbs. He stands on a stepladder to do it. When he can’t unscrew the shattered bulbs he spends a few minutes googling it and then manages to get them out by stabbing the jagged ends into half of a raw potato.

“He’s crazy,” Freddie says, watching him do it.

“Nah,” Roger supplies. “My aunt used to do it like that.”

“Your aunt was crazy.”

“Oh, fuck off.”

They follow the man upstairs and watch as he spends a long moment looking into each of the three bedrooms.

“Who’s is he gonna go for, you think?” Freddie asks. “Mine has the fireplace.”

“Mine is bigger,” Brian says. “Jeffrey and Lauren went for that immediately. I’d be surprised if he—”

But the man surprises them, in the end. He gives the three rooms one last glance, a strangely sad look on his face, and heads back down the stairs without entering any of them.

Roger frowns. “What the hell?”

“Has he gone into the study yet?” Freddie asks.

“He went in earlier,” Brian says. “He just kind of looked around, same as just now. He vacuumed up the glass and that was it.”

“He’s crazy,” Freddie says. “He’s got to be crazy.”

By the time they come downstairs the man is putting a small pot roast in the oven. He stands up, claps his hands once and then folds them as if delivering an address to a crowd.

“Attention,” he says, voice soft and slightly reedy. “God. Unless I’m going crazy and just talking to thin air. Which I feel like is highly likely.”

God help him, Freddie feels a corner of his cold, dead heart melt.

“My name is John,” the man says. “John Deacon. I’m just starting my first year of uni. I heard this place is haunted, but I’m a little strapped for cash right now and since this place cost practically nothing to rent I just figured that maybe we could find a way to coexist.”

“Yeah, he’s a student alright,” Freddie says.

Roger nods. “That logic tracks.”

“I don’t want any trouble,” John continues. “I’ll stay out of your space. I’ll leave the second floor and the study to you, alright? I’ll only be up here now and again to use the kitchen and the bathroom. I’ll set up downstairs in the weird room off the entryway. The creepy pantry-looking thing.”

Roger tuts sympathetically. “Oh…”

“Nobody likes that room,” Brian says.

“I fucking hate that room,” Freddie adds.

“Other than that, I know I’m not in a place to make demands from you but if you stop breaking things around here that would be great. I don’t really have the money to replace anything. The new lightbulbs cost me a fortune already. So if you want to break something just go for this, alright?” He pulls out a sheet of bubble wrap from a bag. “I know this is your house, but I’ll really try to take up as little space as possible. I hope the two of us can make this work.”

And that’s that.

* * *

_“It’s not that I hate sharing space. I don’t. I just don’t particularly like it. I grew up in a small household with a younger sister. You know how it is. When you grow up fighting for every inch of territory you gain you don’t forget it too quickly.” _

* * *

John doesn’t leave.

That’s not for lack of trying, on their parts. To his credit, Brian in particular pulls out all the stops. He spends every night the first week throwing coins down the stairs and letting them roll ominously across the tile floor of the entryway until they clunk against John’s door.

John goes out to Tesco and comes back with a box of earplugs.

His resourcefulness doesn’t mean he doesn’t have his share of sleepless nights, and Roger feels a little bad for it as he sits on the stairs and peers at John through his open door. He’s hunched over a textbook and sat at a desk he’d somehow managed to cram into the entryway room—which, in all honesty, Roger had genuinely believed to be haunted while he was alive due to the fact that it was poorly lit, never heated up in the winter and contained some spiders that looked like they could fight a dog and win—and running a hand through his hair tiredly. There are dark circles under his eyes. Roger is pretty sure he’s lived off ramen for the last two days.

“What do you say we go easy on him for a bit?” Roger calls up the stairs.

“You getting soft?” Freddie calls back.

“Nah. Well,” he amends. “We were students once.”

“Yeah, once.”

Roger sighs.

Upstairs Freddie begins playing the piano.

It’s not very good. He’s gotten a bit better at it in his incorporeal form, and Roger knows as well as any ghost that it takes a good amount of focus to even hit the keys at all. What he whacks out boils down to a kindergarten-level rendition of Chopin.

Roger watches as John heaves a sigh and rubs a hand over his face. When Freddie doesn’t let up he closes his textbook softly and stands, stretching his arms above his head until something cracks. Then he drags the instrument case out from under his bed, opens it to reveal a meticulously maintained electric bass, plugs it into an amp serving as his bedside table, cranks the volume up to full blast and begins improvising a backing part.

Freddie misses a key. “What’s he doing?” he yells uncertainly.

Roger grins. “He’s fucking with you,” he cries.

Freddie falters again and then stops playing entirely. John smiles to himself, plays him out with a few obnoxiously loud bass slaps, and then shouts, “You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone!”

Freddie groans. Roger grins harder.

His joy ultimately ends when John interrupts his television viewing the next night. Actually, it’s Brian’s fault. But he’d rather blame John.

“Cosmos is on,” Brian says.

“Too bad.” EastEnders is on. Not that anyone seems to care.

“Rog.”

“I said too bad, Bri.”

“Roger, you have been watching that for a month straight now,” Brian says, falsely chipper. “Don’t you think it’s time to give it a break?”

“I’m sorry, are you deaf?”

They’re interrupted by John entering the room with a quiet knock. “Hello?”

Brian raises his eyebrows. “Great. Look who it is.”

“Shut up. He probably just wants to watch _good television with me_—”

“I’ll show you good television.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt,” John says quietly. “I was trying to get my laptop to pick it up downstairs, but it wasn’t working. Would you mind terribly if we watched Cosmos up here? I’ll leave you alone afterward. I just don’t want to miss it.”

Brian’s eyebrows rise even further.

“Unfortunately you don’t want to watch it with him, Brian,” Roger drawls, “so it doesn’t matter whose side he’s on.”

“It very much does.”

“Does not.”

“Does too.”

“Only the _dead _get to—hey!”

Brian snatches the remote from where Roger is sitting on it and changes the channel quickly.

“You motherfucker—” Roger starts.

But then John smiles, tiny and shy but very grateful, and sits down hesitantly in the armchair. “Sorry, I hope I didn’t sit on anyone just now. Thank you so much.”

And really, he can’t argue with that.

He doesn’t miss Brian’s triumphant smirk.

* * *

_“Actually, you’d never believe it but I think Roger is the best roommate. He’s a big softie, really.”_

* * *

“Hello?” John calls one afternoon. “Anyone home?”

Brian and Freddie are upstairs, spending time cooling down in their respective rooms after a blowout argument that had left half of the bubble wrap on the counter crushed into a thin sheet of plastic. Neither of them make any effort to come downstairs at John’s call, and Roger rolls his eyes. Typical.

John blanches when he sees the bubble wrap. “Listen, if you’re here I thought we could maybe talk.”

Roger sighs and sits up from the couch. “Talk, then.”

“Can you give me a sign that you’re here?”

Roger crosses over to the counter and deliberately pops one of the bubbles with the tip of his finger.

John pales even further, nodding to himself. “Okay. Alright. Uh, I don’t quite know where you are but if you want to sit with me—if you do that kind of thing, that is…”

He sits down at the table hesitantly.

Roger rolls his eyes and sits across from him. For good measure he lets a cool breeze roll through the room.

John nods. “Okay. Alright.”

He pulls out an Ouija board.

Roger sighs. “Seriously? Again with this shit?”

“I know you probably hate these things,” John says hesitantly. “I’m sure enough people have tried to communicate to you with them, but let’s just give it a try, alright? Then I’ll let you be.”

“Fine,” Roger mutters.

“I suppose it’s redundant to ask you if you’re here with me,” John says, laughing slightly to himself as he places his fingertips on the planchette.

Roger laughs with him and drags the planchette to _Yes._

“Redundant, huh?” John says with another nervous laugh. “Alright. Shit, this is happening. Okay. Um, I guess I’ll start with the obvious. Do you like having people living here?”

“I don’t mind you that much, if that’s what you’re asking,” Roger says. Then he thinks of Brian and Freddie and drags the planchette to _No._

John swallows. “Do you mind me?”

Roger wants to fuck with him, but he looks so damned earnest sitting there. Sighing to himself, he nudges the planchette where it sits on _No._

John sighs. “Alright. Good. I thought you might be, what with the state of the, uh,” he starts, then gestures to the bubble wrap on the counter.

Roger frowns. That’s a little hard to explain, and moving the planchette is already wearing him out a little. Using all his strength he drags the planchette to the number _3\. _

John frowns. “Three? What’s that mean?”

“I’m not spelling it out,” Roger says flatly. “Are you kidding? You know how heavy this thing is?”

“Three,” John murmurs. “What? Strike three? Is that it? But you said you weren’t mad.”

Roger groans. “No, no.”

“Three…it’s been three days since I moved in. Is it that?”

Frustration bubbles up and gives him an extra burst of strength. He drags the planchette to _No._

“Well what, then?” John muses. “You said you don’t have a problem with me living here, but I don’t understand what else you could mean.”

Roger sighs. “God help me, I hope you get this,” he mutters. Painstakingly he drags the planchette to spell _US._

“Us. Us three? Is that what you mean? There are three of you?”

_Yes_. And then Roger sits back and just breathes. Good God, this is tiring.

“There are three of you,” John muses. “Okay, yeah. That makes sense. So the other two were mad earlier, but you’re just kind of hanging out. Is that right?”

Roger doesn’t make a move to redirect the planchette from where it sits. “Understand that as what it is, please,” he says. “Fuck. You ask too many questions.”

“Okay. I think I understand. Thank you for talking to me. What’s your name?”

Roger glares. “Really? You’re going to make me spell that?”

“If you don’t mind me asking,” John adds quickly.

“Damn you for being so polite,” Roger grumbles. He moves the planchette to _R._

John waits patiently, but when no other letters come he blinks. “R. Okay. I can call you that. You don’t like using this, do you?”

“Last one, John,” Roger says, moving the planchette to the _H. _“Last one.”

He gets out _H-E-A-V_ before John gets it. “Heavy,” he says quickly. “If I’m right you can stop spelling.”

“Thank fuck,” Roger says.

John watches the planchette stop dead in its tracks. “It’s too heavy. Okay, that makes sense I guess. I’m sorry I made you answer so many questions, then. Listen R, I’ll figure out a better way for us to talk, okay? Thank you for telling me all this.”

Roger lets his fingers be dragged along as John moves the planchette to _Goodbye._ There’s something intimate about allowing his hands to be lead around the board like that. He wonders if John feels the same way.

* * *

_“Being confronted with mortality? Are you serious? I love the dramatics of it all. Oh, don’t be silly. None of that daunted me one bit. I absolutely loved it.” _

* * *

Freddie is white as a sheet. Freddie is as white as spilled milk.

No, back up.

John went grocery shopping.

All he was able to afford was the basic provisions, evidently: some cereal, some ramen, a couple of day-old sandwiches and a small carton of milk. Apparently tonight was cereal for dinner.

Freddie is sitting in the kitchen across the table from him as he prepares it. Now that they have a permanent and corporeal housemate, Freddie is kind of enjoying just watching him go about daily life. It’s lonely, in a way—it’s hard not to be able to communicate. But then, John seems to know that there’s a presence in his space regardless and doesn’t seem to mind it.

No, that’s a lie. He’s pretty clearly on edge, pretty much all the time. He just makes an effort not to show it.

Roger wanders into the room, humming under his breath. He stops when he sees them. “Hanging out?”

“In a way,” Freddie says. “Join us?”

Roger rolls his eyes and sits down at one of the empty chairs. He frowns at John. “He went shopping?”

“It seems that way.”

“Does he seem tired to you?”

“It probably doesn’t help that we keep him up all night.”

“Maybe we should go easy on him for a while.”

Freddie purses his lips. “Isn’t the goal to get him to move out?” He feels bad even as he says it. The house would be rather empty without John living here. God help him, but he’s getting used to having him around.

Roger seems to be wrestling with the same thought. “Well,” he says slowly. “Suppose he gets so worn out that he thinks he’s just imagining the haunting in the first place. That wouldn’t do us any good.”

“No,” Freddie ventures. “No, I suppose not. You’re right. Let’s give him a little break, then. Just until he catches up on his sleep.”

“Mmh. Agreed.”

John frowns and reaches for the milk. He pours a little more into his bowl.

And Freddie is suddenly looking into his own eyes.

He yelps and recoils, knocking his chair backward onto the kitchen floor.

It hits the floor with a _bang_, and John looks up, wide-eyed. “Hello?” he calls. “R?”

Roger glares. “Freddie? What the hell?”

Freddie gapes at the milk carton. He reaches out to touch it, accidentally knocking it over.

“Fuck,” John swears, scooting back from the table to avoid the spill and quickly righting the carton again before heading for the paper towels.

“Freddie, what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?” Roger snaps.

Freddie is as white as a sheet. Freddie is as white as the spilled milk.

See? There it is.

“Us,” Freddie breathes. “Look. It’s us.”

Roger comes around the table to look at the milk carton and freezes.

His own face is looking back at him, and there’s Freddie, and below that is Brian. And right above them all, in bold, large text, is the word MISSING.

“Fuck,” Roger says. “John? John!”

John frowns to himself as he cleans up the spill.

“Dammit,” Roger says. “John, listen to us.”

“We’re missing,” Freddie mumbles to himself.

“Fuck,” Roger snaps as John turns around. He swats at the milk carton and it falls on its side again.

John turns around at the noise. “Can you not?” he mutters half-heartedly.

“I wouldn’t, but you’re not fucking looking at it!” Roger snaps. The kitchen bulb bursts.

John groans. “Dammit, we had a deal!”

“You’re not listening!” Roger yells. “I’m sorry, but you’re not listening! Look at the—the bloody thing in your hand! My god!”

Brian appears in the doorway. “What’s all the racket?”

“He’s not—look! Look at the milk carton!”

Brian blanches. Now Brian looks like milk, too. “Oh,” he says succinctly.

John reaches for the broom. “Bubble wrap,” he says. “I thought we agreed. Bubble wrap.”

Defiantly, Roger smacks his hand down on the roll. Five bubbles pop at once.

John’s head snaps up from where he’s sweeping up the glass. He doesn’t look scared anymore. He looks exhausted, and pissed off, and very, very done. “What?” he snaps.

Roger huffs. He knocks the milk carton over again.

The broom clatters to the floor as John drops it. “Would you stop,” he snaps as he rights the now-empty carton, “fucking around with all my…”

The three spirits watch expectantly as he trails off, staring at the photos on the side of the carton.

“You think he gets it?” Brian murmurs.

“I don’t even think I get it,” Freddie replies.

Roger doesn’t say anything. One thought is running through his head. _Come on, come on, come on._

“R...” John says quietly. “Does that stand for Roger? Roger Taylor?”

“Yes,” Roger says. “Yes, that’s me. That’s my name.”

“Sorry. Bubble wrap. Pop one for yes.”

Roger reaches over and pops a bubble carefully with his finger.

John lets out a breath. “And Brian and…Farrokh, they live here too?”

_Pop_

“Are they here now?”

_Pop_

“This is what you were trying to tell me? You weren’t angry?”

_Pop_

John nods. “Okay. Alright, thank you. No more breaking bulbs, alright?”

_Pop_

“I’ll find us a better way to communicate. I swear. I’m working on it really hard. I want to find out what happened to you guys. If you’re missing that means you never got justice, doesn’t it? I’m gonna see if I can do something about that. Will you let me?”

_Pop_

“Okay. Okay. I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

_“I was working on my doctorate. I know what it’s like to be a starving student. And yeah, I was working on becoming a doctor of astrophysics and not medicine, but I don’t need a medical background to tell you that nobody can live off of cereal and ramen forever. I know that from personal experience.” _

* * *

John doesn’t find a new way for them to communicate. John gets sick.

He doesn’t emerge for class one morning. Freddie pushes his door open—and not even in a fun, creepy ghost way but in a concerned, sad ghost way—to find him laying in his tiny bed in the cold, cramped pantry, clammy and overheated and completely unresponsive.

“Fuck,” he hisses, then shouts it louder. “Fuck! Roger, Brian! Get down here! Roommate meeting!”

“What?” Roger calls.

“We’re getting a new roommate!”

“What are you on about?”

“John is going to die and join us in the afterlife and we’ll be stuck with him forever if we don’t do something! Get down here now!”

Neither of them even bother walking. They just pop into existence at his side, and the next second he’s surrounded by two wailing undead uni students.

“Oh, humans aren’t supposed to look like that, Freddie—”

“Why is he _wet?_ Oh my god, do something!”

“We need to call an ambulance! Can you talk?”

“I think he stopped breathing. Is he dead? Freddie, is he—”

“Shut up!” Freddie snaps.

They shut up.

“First off, it’s cold as hell down here. Darlings, being in this damp room isn’t doing him any good. We need to get him upstairs.”

“Up to the living room?” Roger asks.

Freddie shakes his head. “Up to mine. It’s always the warmest, and we can light the fireplace. It’s closest to the bathroom, too. I think we could drag him up there if we focus really—”

Without another word Roger hooks his arms under John’s armpits and scoops him out of bed. Looking like he’s about to cry, Brian takes his legs. Together the two of them all but run for the stairs.

Freddie blinks. “Or we could do that.”

The room is still nearly barren, but a little digging reveals a bottle of aspirin. He brings it with him upstairs, and by the time he reaches his own room Brian and Roger have their barely-living housemate settled in Freddie’s bed and buried in blankets. Brian has an ice-cold, incorporeal hand pressed to his forehead.

Roger looks up from where he’s frowning at the fireplace. “I can’t light it,” he says. “Can you?”

Freddie frowns and concentrates. It takes a long moment, but finally the dust-covered logs flicker into flames. They sigh as the crackling of the fire immediately makes the room feel a little cozier.

John sighs. “You’re all beautiful,” he slurs.

“That’s very sweet of you,” Roger murmurs. “Don’t die on us.”

“We can’t let him die,” Freddie says, sounding surer than he feels.

Brian nods. “I don’t want to be stuck with him forever,” he says, voice wobbling.

Roger sniffles.

* * *

_“I don’t know. It’s nice to have purpose again.” _

* * *

Thus begins their three-day long vigil.

John isn’t unresponsive for the whole time, which is good because Roger knows the helplessness of that would have weighed him down within the first few hours. He lapses in and out of fevered delirium, bouncing between insisting on getting up and wearing himself out, and laying in bed slurring half-formed thoughts to any undead soul who will listen.

They’re all listening.

They can’t do much, but they at least stay in the room. They stoke the fire and tell stories, Freddie doodling in his notebook, Roger staring out the window and Brian fussing in any way he possibly can.

“Thank you,” John rasps out after a particularly long bout of fever.

Roger looks over at him. He’s trying to sit up, pushing himself upright on his elbows. His skin is still a sickly pale hue, his hair limp and his lips white. In short, he looks worse than death. Roger would know.

“Thank you so much.” He looks around the room, taking in the cluttered art supplies and piles of sheet music. “Whichever one of you used to live in this room, thank you. This was very kind. I’ve abused your hospitality long enough.”

He swings his legs over the side of the bed, standing slowly.

“Is he trying to leave?” Freddie asks, confused.

“He can’t get far like this,” Roger says. “Surely he knows that. I mean look at him. He can’t seriously…”

John takes a deep breath and starts toward the bedroom door.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Roger mutters.

Brian frowns at him disapprovingly. He reaches out from where he’s seated in front of the fire and pushes the door shut.

John stops and frowns. “I don’t want to overstay my welcome,” he says firmly.

Freddie rolls his eyes. “You aren’t overstaying anything. Sit the fuck down.”

“He does realize we dragged him in here, right?” Roger adds. “Completely without asking? I know we can’t communicate, but is he not getting the nonverbal message here?”

John’s mouth flattens into a stubborn line. He tries the doorknob, but it doesn’t turn. “You’re keeping me here, then.”

“Would you rather die in the pantry?” Brian mutters.

“At least let me take a shower.”

Brian’s expression mimics John’s own. “He’ll fall and brain himself in the shower.”

“He’ll probably feel better if he’s clean,” Freddie offers. “I still have some bubble bath in there.”

Brian hums. “That we could do. Roger, do you want to run him a bath?”

“Already on it,” Roger says, and disappears. A few seconds later the sound of the tub running can be heard down the hall.

Brian sighs and lets the bedroom door swing open. “Alright. Let’s hope he gets that message.”

“You guys are really overbearing, you know that?” John mutters.

“Just trying to keep you alive.”

“I have a mother, you know.”

“I fail to see how that’s relevant.”

“Maybe it’s a good thing we can’t talk,” Freddie offers. “I have a feeling the two of you would just argue all day.”

John leans heavily against the wall and makes his way out the door toward the bathroom, muttering to himself all the while.

He stays in the bath long enough that the three of them start to worry he’s legitimately gone and drowned, and when he finally does come back it’s with fluffy hair and slightly more healthily toned cheeks. He sighs gratefully when he sinks back into the blankets, and he’s asleep again before his head even hits the pillow. He must be exhausted.

Roger swallows. “Good to see him feeling better.”

“It is,” Freddie agrees softly. “We can finally get back to haunting him for real.”

Brian smiles wryly and stirs the fire.

* * *

_“It can be hard balancing your life as a ghost. I guess that time goes by a little faster, dear. Oh, don’t ask me how. It really just flies right by. You’d think you could use your whole afterlife learning new things and maybe writing a memoire or two. It’s not that glamorous. Between nursing the sick and being plagues upon the holy and devout world we’ve really got our hands full.” _

* * *

John’s fever breaks on Sunday. On Monday he goes back to school.

He’s throwing his laptop and books into his backpack as fast as he can, holding a piece of toast in his mouth and still trying to work his left foot fully into his untied trainer. Freddie watches him do it from the doorway, arms crossed and mouth set in a flat line.

“He’s going to trip. Roger? Can you help him with that?”

“You always give me the heavy lifting jobs,” Roger grumbles. He aims a hard kick at John’s shoe, providing the force John needs to get his foot all the way in. John grunts in surprise as it happens, looking down in confusion. “There. Anything else?”

“He’ll get scurvy if he keeps this up. Didn’t he buy oranges?”

They’re in the back,” Brian supplies. “He might remember. I think he’ll see.”

“I highly doubt it.”

John grabs a sandwich from the fridge and stuffs it into his bag.

Brian sighs and pushes an orange forward. It rolls off the shelf and hits the floor, rolling into the kitchen just as the door closes.

John rolls his eyes when he sees it. “You lot should stop fussing. I’m fine.”

“You had a fever,” Brian replies. “You were very definitely not fine.”

“Listen,” John tells them. “Are you all in here?”

Freddie reaches across the counter toward the bubble wrap. _Pop._

John grins. “Great. I’ve got something I’m working on in the lab, so I’ll be home a little late. It’s a little present for you.”

Roger stands up straighter. “Present?”

“Don’t get too excited.”

“He’s not going to just leave us like that, right?” Roger asks. He pops another bubble loudly. “John, what’s the present?” he yells.

“Be patient,” John shouts as he tromps down the stairs. “I’ll be home later.” The door slams behind him.

The three of them blink after him.

“So we’re just supposed to wait here?” Roger asks.

“We’ve been waiting all our afterlives,” Brian says. “I suppose we can manage to wile a day away.”

“How long have we been dead now?” Freddie drawls. “Easy peasy, darlings.”

* * *

_“I was in Uni, yeah. Dentistry. I didn’t like it much. It wasn’t my passion. I think I just kind of told myself it was, but really I know now that it was just a way for me to get to London. Sitting in on dentistry lectures made me quite literally want to die, you know? Have you ever been so bored that you feel like your brain is seeping out of your skull? Like your muscles are atrophying just sitting there? That’s what dentistry lectures felt like. The afterlife is a bit like that.”_

* * *

It is not easy peasy.

Roger loves gifts. Roger loves surprises. Roger cannot focus when he knows there is a surprise on the way.

He can’t even focus on EastEnders. That’s how wired he is.

“Rog, maybe time would go by faster if you stopped just staring at the door,” Brian supplies.

“Oh, piss off,” Roger hisses. “Like you’re doing any better. You’ve been reading that page for an hour now.”

Brian glares at him halfheartedly.

“I feel like a housewife,” Freddie moans from where he’s laying on the floor. “I miss him! I want him to come home! What are we supposed to do when we’re not—not haunting him and the like? I’m bored out of my mind!”

“What did we even used to do with all our time?” Roger asks.

“There’s scrabble.”

Roger hums dejectedly. “I don’t want scrabble.”

“Telly?”

“How long until you think he’s home?”

Brian glances at the clock. “Six hours or so?”

Roger groans.

* * *

_“I moved in with Roger about two years ago, I think. We’ve had our ups and downs. Really though, I think our greatest strength has been communication. Ask anyone. There are a lot of secrets to success for living with roommates, but the big one is communication. You have to be able to talk it out.”_

* * *

“Hello?” John asks, pushing open the door with his hip, a cardboard box cradled in his hands.

Roger doesn’t look up from where he’s laying on the couch, staring at the ceiling. “I haven’t forgiven you for leaving us.”

“Nor have I,” Freddie calls from the floor.

Brian rolls his eyes and turns a page of his textbook.

“Are you guys in here?” John asks. “Give me a sign or something.”

Roger lets his frustration manifest, a cold breeze rolling through the flat. He feels slightly better when John shivers, then immediately feels guilty. He may be up and about, but he’s still chasing off the last of his illness.

“Sorry,” John tells them. “I thought that would take less time. There was a lot of last-minute calibration to deal with, and to top it off one of my classmates was working on something and asked me to be a second set of hands, so it was all just a bit of a mess. But I had the idea for this the day before I got sick, and I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.”

“Oh my god,” Freddie mutters. “He’s a nerd.”

“I guess I should tell you I’m studying electrical engineering,” John says. “Roger and I were talking a few weeks ago, and he mentioned that the planchette on the Ouija board is really difficult to move. Obviously we can’t rely on that for communication if you guys have to work hard to use it. I don’t think that’s really very fair.”

“Maybe you guys are just weak,” Freddie sniffs.

Brian glares. “Will you shut up? He’s talking.”

John is talking. John’s talking is probably very interesting. It is also probably not English. He rambles for a minute or two about electronics and circuits and some other stuff Roger _definitely_ doesn’t understand, and by the time he’s finished Brian and Freddie are both staring at him, equal parts baffled, impressed and skeptical.

“Anyway,” he finishes his diatribe. “I know that’s a lot of jargon, so I suppose I should just show you guys.”

He opens the box and pulls out a circuit board connected to a flat sheet of metal that vaguely resembles a keyboard.

“This is a kind of modified EMF detector. I don’t know how much ghosthunters really know, but they said temperature isn’t always an accurate indicator of whether there is a spirit present. So I figured this would be more accurate, I guess. I turned down the sensors so it’ll only feel you if you’re touching it. You should be able to type on it just like a keyboard, and it’ll display on my computer.”

Freddie blinks at it, stroking the surface experimentally. “What the fuck.”

“There are three buttons up here,” John adds. “One for each of you. Just hit yours before you start typing so I know who’s saying what.”

“I think I love him,” Roger murmurs.

“I also equipped it with emoji shortcuts,” John adds.

“Okay, I _do_ love him,” Roger corrects himself. “If this works—”

“This better work,” Freddie says. “This is gonna be _great._”

John gets out his laptop and boots it up, plugging the device in carefully.

“Who gets to go first?” Freddie asks. “I’m the best at typing, I think. But I don’t want to hog it.”

Brian shrugs. “I want to elect myself, but I think you actually deserve a good deal of credit for this, Rog.”

“It’s not like I built the thing,” Roger says.

“No, but even so. Just give it a shot.”

John clears his throat and turns the keyboard toward the couch. “It’s ready,” he says. The laptop screen is black, the cursor blinking steadily. “Can one of you try this out and see if it’s working?”

“Go, Rog,” Freddie says.

John watches the screen expectantly.

Roger leans forward. He carefully hits the button at the top of the screen labelled _R_ and watches as the cursor turns blue. John gasps, and Roger grins.

“That’s a great sign,” John says. “That means it can feel you, at least. Well done, Roger. How’s it working?”

Roger regards the keyboard, tongue caught between his teeth. Carefully, he opens the emoji menu and scans through. He brings his finger deliberately down and hits enter.

A thumbs-up appears on the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Midterms are next week, so this is the last you're getting for a little while. Thank you to everyone who commented and left kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

_“No, we’re smart guys. We’re all smart guys, I think. So don’t get me wrong when I say it isn’t an issue of memory. I think I’d remember something like that.” _

* * *

“So let me get this straight, Farrokh,” John says, frowning at his laptop screen.

Freddie grimaces. _Just Freddie, love, _he types quickly. _The damned milk carton people got it wrong._

“Freddie. Sorry. So not one of you can remember how you died?”

Freddie shrugs. He’s sitting beside John on the couch, typing away quickly on the device in front of him. “I sure as hell can’t remember,” he tells Roger and Brian, who are leaning against the armrests to get a better view. “Can either of you?”

Roger shakes his head. “No,” Brian says, pursing his lips. “I always thought that was just how the afterlife worked. Maybe we wouldn’t want to remember.”

John’s frown deepens as Freddie types as much. “You don’t remember a thing? No enemies? Nothing?”

Freddie shakes his head to himself, typing quickly. _Everyone loved us, dear. We were quite popular._

John lets out a breath. “And you have no idea where your bodies are? Presumably they’re somewhere in this house.”

Freddie looks to Brian, who frowns. _Why is that?_ He types.

John shrugs. “Well, you’re haunting the place, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it make sense that you were…were put to rest here?”

_Or maybe we were just killed here._

“That’s a gruesome thought.”

“Yeah, Freddie,” Roger scolds. “That’s a gruesome thought.”

“Oh, shut up,” Freddie says halfheartedly. “Don’t tell me you weren’t thinking it.”

“I’m guessing the police swept this place pretty well after you went missing,” John sighs. “Odd that they left all your stuff here, but maybe I can ask around. I mean, the landlord didn’t tell me that anyone had died here. Aren’t they legally required to tell you that? So maybe you didn’t die here after all.”

_Your guess is as good as ours,_ Freddie types. Then he adds a kissy emoji.

John lets out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose it is.”

The clock chimes three.

Brian elbows Freddie lightly in the shoulder. “You should tell him to sleep. It’s late.”

Freddie frowns. It’s surely for the best, but he wishes that he could talk to John a little longer anyway. That’s what tomorrow is for, he supposes. _You should go to bed, John. You can’t keep doing late nights like this when you’re still sick. _

John waves him off. “I’m not still sick.”

_You’re still recovering. _

“I’m fine.”

“He’s clearly not,” Roger says. “Look at his cheeks. He’s all pale again, and he’s gonna wear himself out if he isn’t careful.”

Freddie sighs. _Go to bed. In Roger’s professional opini_

“Roger’s a doctor?” John blurts out.

Freddie rolls his eyes and hits the enter key until he reaches a new line. _Dentist._

“Hey,” Roger starts.

“Oh, do you want to type?” Freddie sighs, exasperated. He backspaces quickly and corrects himself. _Dental student. _

“Well, he doesn’t have authority then,” John says haughtily.

“Move over,” Brian says, nudging Freddie in the back.

Freddie sighs and scoots out of the way, making room for Brian. Brian hits the button labelled ‘B’ at the top of the keyboard and the cursor turns red. _John, this is Brian,_ he types. _We’re leaving. Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow._

John sighs. “Fine. Tomorrow.”

_Sleep upstairs. It’s warmer._

“He can take my room again,” Freddie says, and Brian nods as he types it down.

“That’s Freddie’s room?”

_The one with the fireplace is Freddie’s. _

“I don’t want to impose.”

Freddie elbows Brian.

“Ow!” Brian snaps. “What the fuck?”

“Move,” he grumbles, flicking the ‘F’ button. _Darling, you’re not imposing, _he types quickly. _Believe me. I’m happy to have you sleep up there if it’ll keep you warm at night._

John frowns at the screen. “You’re sure?”

_Positive. Stay warm. _

John doesn’t look happy about it. “Alright,” he says hesitantly. “If you’re sure. If you need space or anything at all just let me know and I’ll go back downstairs, okay?”

_Okay. It won’t be a problem, though._

“Alright. Thank you, Freddie,” John murmurs with a hesitant smile, and Freddie feels his cold, dead little heart give a helpless flutter. “Thank you to all three of you for talking to me tonight. I’ll get some sleep and talk to you tomorrow.”

Brian switches off the keyboard. Freddie watches him do it, then watches John head upstairs.

“He’s a sweet thing, isn’t he?” he murmurs quietly.

Brian hums. “It feels weird to haunt him after all this.”

“Suppose it does.”

Roger purses his lips, eyes still trained on the staircase. “Suppose we let up on him a little?”

“Suppose we do.”

“Not a bad plan, no,” Brian supplies.

“No,” Roger says hesitantly. He licks his lips. “No, I suppose it’s not.”

* * *

_“Genuinely liking your roommates is always a good thing. Well, almost always. I guess it depends on how much you like them.” _

* * *

“I’m home!” John calls, the door banging shut downstairs.

Roger looks up from his documentary. He’d run out of EastEnders sometime yesterday. He’s now plowing his way through Blue Planet.

It’s not really the same.

“Guys?” John calls.

“What do you want us to do? Answer?” Roger calls back.

“Hello?”

Roger rolls his eyes. He leans over and pops a bubble on the sheet of bubble wrap on the coffee table.

John wanders into the room, frowning as his eyes fall on the telly. “Uh…Brian?” he calls uncertainly.

Roger rolls his eyes again and pops two bubbles. “As if Brian is the only one who can watch educational television once in a while,” he mutters.

“Sorry,” John says. He digs around in his backpack until he unearths his laptop. “Roger, then.”

_Pop._

“I figured.”

“Why couldn’t it have been Freddie?” Roger asks him.

John doesn’t answer, quickly plugging in their little ghost typewriter. The three lights at the top blink as it connects. “How was your day, then?”

Roger sighs and hits the ‘R’ button. _Fine. How’d you know it was me and not Freddie?_

“Freddie never watches telly,” John points out. “I’ve never heard of him doing it, anyway.”

_He has a short attention span._

“Noted,” John replies with a wry smile. “Where is he, then? Are you the only one here?”

_They’re upstairs doing god knows what. Probably working on the scrabble showdown. _

“Scrabble showdown.”

_It’s been going on for_, he starts, then pauses. He frowns as he thinks. _Actually I don’t know how long we’ve been dead for. But it’s been going on for that long. _

“Oh. That’s kind of sweet. Did you guys used to play it a lot?”

_Yeah. Cards is kind of harder these days. _

“Why?”

_Harder to hold. _

“Oh. I suppose that makes sense, then. Yeah.”

_How was class? _

“Fine. Boring.” He runs a hand through his hair. “There’s nothing new there, honestly. People have been asking about my project,” he adds.

Roger grins. “I’m sure they have,” he mutters.

“They’re calling it a, uh. Hold on, I wrote it down,” he says, pulling out a notebook and flipping it open. “They’re calling it a ’short-range electro-magnetic frequency-enabled detector array.’ Which was then shortened to ‘Short-range Emf Keyboard. Which,” he pauses, closing his notebook, “was then shortened to Shrek.”

Roger freezes, and then bursts out laughing.

John, oblivious, continues to blink into his perceived silence of the room. “I’m guessing you do know what Shrek is, right? It’s this movie about a, uh. It’s about an ogre, who—”

_I know what shrekj s, _Roger types hurriedly, still cackling.

John sighs tiredly. “Great. Well, they wanted to know if Shrek is operating sufficiently,” he starts, and Roger lets out another peal of laughter. “I didn’t know what to tell them, seeing as I couldn’t very well tell them _how_ it’s being tested. So to the best of their knowledge, Shrek is an experiment gone wrong.” He rubs the back of his neck, oblivious to Roger’s cackling. “Anyway, after class I went to that weird shop in Spitalfield, do you know the one? The one in the basement of that bubble tea place?”

Roger frowns, trying his best to curb his laughter. _Bubble tea place?_

“Or, I don’t know. You’ve been dead for a while, I guess. I think it used to be a weird gothic statuary shop or something, but the bubble tea ended up winning out in the eyes of consumers.”

_I still don’t know it,_ Roger types slowly.

“Well, that’s alright. It’s like a little pagan bookshop-type thing, and they deal with the occult a lot as well. I figured I’d ask around, and—” he digs through his bag, pulling out a book with a heavy leather cover, “—I found this!”

Roger squints at it. The writing on the cover is entirely in some odd version of cursive, and his eyesight hasn’t gotten much better after death. _What is that?_

“It’s a book about ghosts and things! There’s this spell in here that I want to try out. The woman in the shop said it’s so easy that even—even simpletons could pull it off, she said. She said I’d probably have no trouble. Do you want to get Freddie and Brian in here?”

Roger tilts his head back. “FREDDIE! BRIAN!” he screams.

There’s a beat of silence before Freddie’s footsteps pound down the stairs. He stops midway down. “Is lacquers a word?”

“Plural of lacquer, Fred!” Brian shouts.

“It doesn’t _have _a plural, Brian!” Freddie snaps. “Who’d want to pluralize lacquer, anyway?”

“Never mind that,” Roger yells. “John’s trying out black magic, and if you don’t get down here you’re going to miss it!”

“John’s doing _what?!” _Brian yells. His feet come tramping down the stairs too, and now he’s hovering behind Freddie. “That sounds awfully unsafe.”

“Oh, don’t pretend you’re not intrigued,” Roger says, rolling his eyes. _All here,_ he types.

John claps his hands. “Great. You guys ready?”

“What is he trying to do, exactly?” Freddie asks hesitantly. He paces closer to the coffee table as John pulls out a little jar and a few candles.

“I dunno, actually,” Roger says. _What are you doing, exactly?_

“This spell is meant to make spirits briefly corporeal,” John explains, opening the jar. He pulls out a black dish and sprinkles the contents neatly across its surface before placing a candle in the middle. “If all goes according to plan, I should be able to see and talk to you guys. It should be simple, really.”

“This doesn’t seem simple,” Brian says. He sits down on the stairs, peering at them through the rails. “I feel like magic isn’t really ever simple.”

“Oh, like you would know,” Freddie tuts.

“This is thyme,” John explains. “Some cinnamon too, I think. The candle is meant to be a beacon, I guess?” He opens his book and skims the page. “So all we really have to do is light this and then say the words, and it should work. She said this book is good for beginners. It’s foolproof, practically.”

Roger snorts. _Brian is doubting you._

“Well, Brian, I suppose I’m excited to prove you wrong,” John mutters. “Okay, here we go.”

The three of them watch as he pulls a lighter out of his pocket (_Ha. Stoner,_ Roger thinks to himself) and lights the candle, skimming the page quickly. “You who were alive yesterday,” he says, “show yourself.”

They blink at the candle expectantly. Nothing happens.

“Can you see me, then?” Freddie asks.

John doesn’t respond.

_Is there a step you’re missing? _Roger types.

“No,” John says. He flips the page over, then back again. “No, that’s it. It didn’t work.”

“Told you,” Brian mutters.

“That’s odd. That’s really, really odd.”

_Maybe she lied about it being easy, _Roger types.

“Or maybe he just didn’t do it right,” Brian says, reading over his shoulder.

Roger sighs. “Do you want to tell him that? Cause I’m not.”

Brian rolls his eyes, leaning over his shoulder and smacking the ‘B’ key. The cursor turns red, and Freddie crowds over his shoulder to read as he’s typing. _Are you sure you didn’t miss a step?_

“He seems very thorough,” Freddie mutters.

“I was very thorough,” John says. “I swear. You can see for yourself. That’s all that’s written.”

_Maybe the book is bad._

“Maybe,” John mutters. “I guess I might as well drop in tomorrow and ask her. Maybe there’s something going on here that we’re not thinking of.”

* * *

_“Well, longevity to me is more about staying in your own space and keeping to yourself. Obviously that’s not always possible, but we do try. My greatest tip for living with roommates would be that you really just need to remember that you’re all human—or that you were human once, at least. Humans make mistakes.“_

* * *

Freddie is getting bored, and a bored Freddie is a dangerous Freddie indeed.

“Do you miss Twitter?”

Brian looks up from the book propped up on his desk to where Freddie is sprawled across his bed—which he claims he’s only using these days because John has taken his own, conveniently ignoring the fact that he used to do this while they were alive, too. Brian has chosen not to point that out. “I never had Twitter,” Brian says, carefully ignoring the odd twisting feeling in his stomach that the sight of Freddie causes. “You know that.”

“Well, social media then. Do you miss it?”

He hums, turning a page. “I miss Instagram, I guess. No idea where they put our phones.”

“I think the police took them as evidence. Funny that they’d do that but then they wouldn’t bother taking any of our other stuff away.”

“They took my guitar,” Brian points out.

“To give back to your family, yeah,” Freddie muses. “They didn’t take my piano. I suppose my family didn’t want it back.”

“Well, they’ve already got one.”

“Mine’s better.”

“Then I suppose you should be grateful that they didn’t take it.”

“Do you miss your guitar?”

Brian shoots him a tired glare. As if that’s even a question. “Do you miss your twitter?” he counters.

Freddie pouts at him, and that just makes his stomach feel even weirder which, hmm. He’d be concerned he’s getting another ulcer if it weren’t for the fact that he doesn’t even have a stomach. “That was low,” Freddie chides.

“Yeah, yeah. You get my point, though.” He carefully peels a sticky note off of his pad and marks a page with it. “I suppose it shouldn’t much matter, should it? We’ve got plenty of other things to keep us busy.”

“As if it matters,” Freddie grumbles. He picks a rubber band ball off Brian’s desk, throwing it up in the air and catching it again. He only makes it two tosses before his concentration breaks and the ball falls straight through his hand to land on the bed beside his head. “Fuck. What’s the point of studying? We’re never sitting our exams. What are you going to do? Write papers for the rest of your life that nobody is ever going to read?”

“I’m looking through John’s book, actually,” Brian says dryly. “I wanted to know if there was anything useful in here.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Maybe. I don’t know how credible this is, though. It didn’t work yesterday, so who’s to say whether any of this is going to work at all?”

Freddie sighs and sits up. “This is hopeless. We should do something.”

“I didn’t finish beating you at Scrabble yesterday.”

“You weren’t going to beat me,” Freddie huffs.

Brian nods, not looking up from his book. “Alright, Fred.”

“You _weren’t._”

“Pretty sure I’d already won.”

“You didn’t win shit and you know it.” Freddie is silent for a beat, and Brian studiously ignores him. “You know what? We should start a blog.”

“Why?”

“We should. We have a lot of knowledge to lend, I think.”

“We don’t have anything to lend that no one else has already said,” Brian tells him.

Freddie huffs again. “Well, that’s your opinion. If you ask me the world hasn’t heard enough from those trapped on the spirit plane, doomed to haunt mortals for all eternity. Are you not aware of the premise of Buzzfeed Unsolved? Besides, forgive me if I’m getting ready to pull my hair out from boredom, darling. I’m sure Blondie would agree.”

“Maybe you should go ask him, then.”

“Maybe I will,” Freddie says, and he disappears from his place on Brian’s bed with a muffled _pop._

Brian sighs. Suddenly the prospect of holing up in his room for some peace and quiet is a lot less appealing. He carefully avoids thinking about how that fact might be attributed to the lack of Freddie’s presence.

* * *

_“THE DEATH AND TIMES OF THREE PHANTOM ROOMMATES. Yeah, we’re undead. Keep scrolling.” _

* * *

“I think I have a solution for us,” John says to the room at large.

Freddie sighs. “Solution to what?”

“It’s really rather unclear, seeing as we have more problems than we can name,” Roger deadpans, picking at the nonexistent dirt underneath his nails. From the armchair Brian snorts.

John runs his finger over the laptop’s track pad a few times. It turns on, displaying a black screen titled _Secrets To Success For (After)Life With Roommates_ in curly white font. He blinks at it a few times, then squints. “What’s this?” he asks.

“I swear he keeps forgetting we can’t talk to him,” Roger says. “Who’s typing today?”

“Not me,” Brian says immediately. “You guys are the techies in the room.”

“I don’t really want to,” Freddie says flatly. “Besides, what does he even mean? Has he never seen Wordpress before? He knows what he’s looking at.”

“’If you step into my home you’re going to know that I’m the top dog here and I’m all bite,’” John reads aloud in monotone. “Really, Roger?”

Roger frowns and leans forward to open their chat window. _How’d you know that was me?_

“Who else would that be? I may not know your guys’ voices but I know by now how you talk.”

“Told you that was heavy-handed,” Brian says.

Roger glares at the screen. “Damn,” he mutters.

“Okay, uh,” John says, “we’re gonna talk about that later, I guess. I don’t think it’s really the best idea to…” he trails off as Roger begins typing again.

_You’re not our mom_

“Yeah, I’m aware, actually. Thanks, Rog.”

_Why does it matter_

“Because I don’t want to get framed for—I don’t know, for disrespecting the dead or something.”

_I don’t think that’s a crime_

“Well, I know that it’s—”

“It’s definitely not a crime,” Freddie intones.

“Yeah, I’m fine with being disrespected,” Brian adds.

_Freddie and Bri don’t think it’s a crime either_

John sighs. “This was Freddie’s idea, wasn’t it?”

_Yeah. And hes 5 years older than you so you_

“Okay, I take it back,” John says quickly. “You know what? I don’t care.”

Roger grins and adds a thumbs up emoji.

John rolls his eyes. “I was just coming in here to tell you that I talked to that woman again. She said that the odds that that spell went wrong are really, really low, but that if we really think we messed that up that first we should try something else to see if you guys are really ghosts at all.”

Roger frowns and looks to Brian, but Brian looks as confused as he feels.

“What else would we be?” Freddie asks.

“She said that it’s possible that you’re some other type of spirit trapped on the mortal plane, or else that maybe there’s something else going on. It’s not likely, but it’s worth looking into.” John pulls out a paper bag from his coat pocket, opening it to reveal a bunch of dried sage. “She said it’s unlikely that this will banish you guys completely if you’re ghosts, but if you aren’t it won’t do anything at all. It’s the easiest way to test out what’s going on here.”

_I don’t fancy being banished,_ Roger types.

“Well, if her hypothesis is true then you won’t be banished at all.”

“This doesn’t seem safe,” Roger says.

“Please, darling,” Freddie says. “What’s the worst that can happen? We die?”

“It just doesn’t really seem like he knows what he’s doing here,” Roger says, a hint of pleading sneaking into his tone. “Am I the only one who thinks that?”

They both look to Brian, who shrugs. “It’s science, isn’t it?” he says hesitantly. “Science isn’t always safe.”

“Spoken like a true physicist,” Roger says with a roll of his eyes. “You can’t just test out random products and—”

“Oh, yes, now you’re speaking like a _biologist,_” Brian says. “Sometimes you need to take a leap of faith. How is he supposed to test a hypothesis otherwise?”

“As a vegetarian shouldn’t you be against testing on living subjects?”

“We aren’t living, Roger. Besides, it’s not like we have other options.”

“Every day I’m thankful that you never went into medicine,” Roger snaps.

“Neither did you!”

“Boys, boys,” Freddie says. “Please. As the resident tie breaker and local art student, I’d like to remind you both how important it is to take risks. I mean, do we really have any other choice?”

“Yes!” Roger says.

Freddie crosses his arms. “I say we do it. And that makes it three-to-one.”

“Which makes it a tyranny of the majority,” Roger finishes for him.

John blinks expectantly. “So…are we doing this, or…”

The two of them stare Roger down. He glares back for a long moment. “Fine,” he snaps finally, typing a quick affirmation. “But don’t complain to me when we get fucking exorcised or something.”

“He’s not exorcising us,” Freddie says. “Just banishing us.”

“Oh, like you even know what that means.”

John pulls out his lighter, carefully setting the ends of the leaves ablaze until the fire fades into cinders. A fat stream of smoke drifts into the air.

The three blink at each other expectantly.

“Are you guys still here?” John asks.

_Yeah,_ Roger types.

John frowns. “Do you feel anything at all?”

Freddie frowns. “It doesn’t smell great,” he says.

_Smells like pot,_ Roger types. He thinks for a minute, then amends it. _Really bad pot._

John snorts. “Yeah, believe me when I say it smells pretty bad to the living as well. So you’re not feeling any sort of banishment at all?”

“I kind of want to leave, I guess,” Brian says. “It smells pretty foul. Is that what it’s supposed to do? Make us want to leave?”

Roger shrugs. “I don’t know. It seems kind of anti-climactic.” _We’re not really feeling anything._

“Okay,” John sighs. “Okay. We can work with that. All that means is that it’s fairly possible that you guys aren’t actually ghosts. No big deal.”

Freddie’s eyes nearly bug out of his head. “_What.”_

_What does that mean,_ Roger types, heart in his throat.

John’s eyes skim the line quickly. “I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I’m really not sure. She said it’s possible, but…I’m sorry. I don’t know.”

The embers in the sage sputter out, leaving only the smoke lingering in the air. Roger turns the thought of that over and over in his head. They’re not ghosts. It doesn’t make sense, and yet here they are.

The smoke alarm goes off.

* * *

_“Obviously you should be careful about what you’re cooking or burning. Now, my lovely roommate has been living off of Cup Noodle for the last two weeks, but even he can have some problems with the fire alarm due to other more occult reasons. Here’s a tip: it’s a lot easier to get out of trouble with the landlord for nearly setting your flat on fire when the whole living room doesn’t smell like really shitty weed.”_

* * *

John falls into a research hole that night. He holes up with his laptop and about 12 different notebooks in Freddie’s room, curled up in bed with the fire roaring. Brian can hear Sam Smith playing through the wall until easily three in the morning.

“He needs to go to bed,” Freddie says.

Brian sighs and rolls closer to him. “He’s not going to listen. There’s not any way we can tell him, anyway. He’s commandeered the, uh…”

“The Shrek,” Freddie supplies.

Brian snorts. “Yes, thank you. The Shrek.”

“He’s going to work himself into the grave,” Freddie argues. “We should know.”

“As if we even know how we died.”

“As if we even know we died at all.”

“Touché,” Brian says, gazing at the gloom of the ceiling thoughtfully. The glow-in-the-dark stars that Freddie and Roger had stuck up there (in gross violation of their lease agreement, not that anyone needs to know) are still there, shining a pale green. The bass in the music filters softly from next door. “What do you think happened, then?”

“Honestly?” Freddie says. “I’m—I’m not sure.”

Brian rolls to face him. “You must have some idea,” he whispers.

“Maybe, yeah. Maybe just an idea. I mean, it really only just occurred to me, Brimi.”

“What is it?”

Freddie is silent for a long beat. “Do you remember the auditions last March? There was a girl. She couldn’t have been older than John at the time.”

Brian frowns. “I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t. It was during the time that Doug auditioned.”

Doug. Their second bassist after Tim, from what Brian remembers. He’d only lasted a few gigs or so before university life had caught up with him, and Brian never blamed him. All their other bassists had gone the same way before and since.

“Well, there was a girl in that audition pool. She was good. They were all good, really. Doug stood out as great, so we picked him. You remember.”

“I remember,” Brian says. “I’m not sure I remember her, though.”

He feels more than sees Freddie shrug. “I wouldn’t remember her either, honestly. The only reason I do is because she said something odd to me on her way out.”

Brian sits up and turns on the light on his bedside table so that he can look at Freddie’s face. “What?” he asks. “What did she say?”

Freddie blinks up at him with dark eyes. “I went outside for a smoke break and she came up to me. She said that we had a long way to go before we found who we were really looking for. I didn’t really know what she meant so I thanked her for auditioning and said that we felt we’d found the right candidate.”

Brian frowns. “It’s a little odd, I suppose.”

“Well, but then she told me that we were wrong. That we hadn’t found the right one.”

“So she was jealous?”

Freddie shakes his head. “Not jealous, no. She seemed perfectly alright with the fact. And then she told me not to worry. She said, ‘You won’t waste your lives trying to find who you’re looking for.’ I told her that we were really quite happy with the bassist we already had, and she said that wasn’t what she meant. And then she left.”

Brian blinks. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” he says with a nod. “She just walked away. Got on the bus and left.”

“And you think she has something to do with this?”

“It’s all I can think of,” Freddie says, shrugging.

Brian lets out a slow breath. “This is crazy.”

“What’s crazy? Because the way I see it, you and I are undead spirits cursed to haunt this house, except we’re _not,_ and our only source of communication with the outside world is a student who’s doing his utmost to help us out. I say we tell him everything we know and give him a better chance.”

“Do you remember her name?” Brian asks.

Freddie shakes his head. “She had dark hair. That’s all I remember. Roger would know. He never forgets a face.”

Brian nods and unearths himself from the pile of blankets on his bed. “I suppose I’ll go see, then.”

“Good luck.”

Brian opens the door and silently creeps down the hall, knocking on Roger’s bedroom door once before opening it. Roger is sprawled in bed, surrounded by various papers covered in lyrics and chords. “What?” he asks.

“EastEnders not doing it for you anymore?”

“You know as well as I do that I finished it last week,” Roger says crisply. “What’s going on?”

“I have a question for you,” Brian says, closing the door behind himself. “Do you remember a girl in the audition pool when we were looking for Mike’s replacement? I know it was a long time ago, but—”

“Which one?” Roger asks. “There were eight that showed up, right? Doug was one, and then there was Jordan, Sophia, Renee, Austin, Emerson, Dave, and Aiden.”

Brian frowns. “How do you remember that?”

“How do you not?” Roger says, rolling his eyes. “They all showed up to try out. The least you could do is remember their names.”

“It was nearly a year ago!”

“So?”

Brian sighs. “The dark-haired one.”

“Mmh. That was Sophia.” He squints into space. “Sophia Milton? I think that’s her full name. She’s studying English.”

“You’re the best, Roger,” Brian says, opening the door. “Thank you.”

“No problem. You owe me.” He pauses for a minute. “Wait, why were you asking?”

“We think she cursed us,” Brian says, then closes the door. He walks down the hall toward John’s room, ignoring Roger’s muffled screech, and knocks a few times before swinging it open.

John is dead to the world.

He’s using his keyboard as a pillow, the fire still crackling and keeping the room warm and Freddie’s fairy lights plugged in to warm it further. He’s half tangled in blankets, music still playing softly from his laptop.

Brian sighs fondly.

He focuses with all his might and carefully pulls the laptop out from below John’s face, closing it and pulling the blanket further over him. He unplugs the string of lights, letting only the flickering embers light the room.

When he returns to his own bedroom Freddie is waiting for him expectantly. “What did he say?” he whispers.

Brian slides in next to him and turns off the light. “It can wait till morning,” he whispers back.

* * *

_“At the end of the day it’s easier to understand people who you have a desire to understand. If you care about someone you’ll do what you have to in order to make it work. You and your friends will have your ups and downs, but never forget that your friends are also always going to be your best allies.“_

* * *

John reads the sentiment as it’s being written by Brian the next evening. He’s multitasking, but not terribly well. He’s going to burn his noodles.

“He’s going to burn his noodles,” Roger says.

Brian switches to the chat window quickly. _John. Noodles._

“What? Oh—_shit._”

They can be salvaged, but only just. Roger mentally pats himself on the back.

John sighs. This is the third night in a row of noodles for dinner. Roger is considering impersonating a Nigerian prince on John’s laptop so that he can afford to buy himself a steak or something. “So I talked to Sophia today,” John tells them. “Only on Facebook, I mean. She actually graduated, and I guess she’s working in the States now or something.”

Roger leans over Brian’s shoulder and ignores the way Brian shivers as he does. _Can I talk to her on facebook?_

“No, Roger.”

_Why not?_

“I don’t think it’s a good idea. You can read her message if you want, though.”

Roger frowns and opens messenger.

“Can you at least let me move out of the way if you’re going to take control of this?” Brian huffs.

“What’s the matter? You don’t like me taking control?”

Brian shudders, then sighs so hard Roger is surprised he doesn’t create a draft. He squirms a bit in Roger’s arms but doesn’t say anything, and Roger smiles and rests his cheek on Brian’s shoulder as together they start reading.

_Hi John. So sorry about your unique situation. The truth is I was just a beginner at the time and I didn’t really know my own strength, I guess you could say. I can’t tell you much about what happened, other than I didn’t know that I was doing it and as such I have no idea how to break it. I will tell you that I did it with good intentions at heart. I really did want to help them find someone who would complete them, who would be loyal to them and someone that they could love in return. A partnership that could last until death and even through it, I guess. Unfortunately when that happens is not up to me or to them. I don’t know what else to say other than I’m sorry, and that maybe a professional could tell you more. Sophia. _

“That’s it?” Roger says. “She’s sorry?”

“She’s sorry and she can’t help,” Brian mutters. “Very informative.”

Roger frowns and begins typing a reply. _Listen you heinous witch_

John immediately yanks the laptop out of reach.

“Hey!” Roger whines. “You can’t just grab Shrek from me!”

“I told you it’s best that we leave it,” John says quickly, switching back to the chat window and putting the computer back down. “Besides, at least we know one thing now. You guys aren’t dead, not really. We don’t know what’s happening, but I think that’s pretty clear. Shouldn’t that be a cause for celebration? We should focus on breaking the curse and getting you guys back into the swing of your daily life.”

“Daily life,” Roger huffs, curling around Brian petulantly.

“Aren’t you guys happy?”

Brian, still trapped in Roger’s grasp, rolls his eyes. He wrestles his hands free to type. _Roger doesn’t want to go back to dental school._

John’s eyebrows shoot up. “Well, I’m very sorry about that, Roger. Maybe once this is all said and done you can switch your major or something.”

_He just wants to be a famous drummer._

“Like Keith Moon,” Roger adds.

_Like Keith Moon. _

“You like The Who?”

_Yeah_

Freddie bounces into the room as he types it, squinting over the shoulders of the RogerAndBrian pile taking up a good corner of the kitchen. “Bonzo. Led Zeppelin.”

“It’s not the same thing,” Roger argues. “Just because you two have your—Hey!”

Freddie reaches over his shoulder to type, only to be elbowed out of the way. _Lealsdfsghjghkj,mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm_

John squints. “What?”

“It’s why we call him Brimi!” Freddie squawks. “Roger, this is erasure! Roger!”

“I thought that was Jimi Hendrix?” Roger asks.

Brian quickly slaps the ‘B’ key. _Roger is a damn liej;adslf_

“You guys need to share Shrek,” John says patiently.

“Like hell we do!” Roger snaps. “I’ll hog Shrek if I want to!”

* * *

_“Sharing is actually caring. Some people would really do well to learn that.”_

* * *

“I want to help,” John says a week later.

Roger sighs. He’s sitting across from John on Freddie’s bed.

John looks tired. John doesn’t look good. Or, no, John looks _good._ John always looks _good_, which is fine if not mildly frustrating, but John looks a little bit rough around the edges.

He looks tired.

“I just need a week,” John says. “Give me a week.”

“You need way longer than a week,” Roger says.

“I just need to catch up on my studies, and then everything will be good. Finals, you know?”

Roger leans forward. _I know. Please take it easy. _

“I’ll be fine. Just a few late nights of studying, that’s all. It’ll all be over soon.”

Roger very carefully doesn’t think about how that sounds very dark.

“He won’t go to bed?” Brian asks from the doorway.

“I don’t think it’s likely, no,” Roger says.

Brian crosses his eyes. “This is getting a little ridiculous. He’s slept how many hours this week?”

“Twelve,” Freddie says from where he’s laying on the floor in front of the fire. “Not that I’m keeping track.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“What do you suggest? That we knock him out?” Roger snaps.

Brian pauses for a moment like he’s actually considering it.

Roger sighs again. _You need to take a break. We all agree._

John reads it with shadowed eyes. “I want to help you. Believe me when I say that. I really, really want to fix this, guys. I just…”

_I don’t care about that. We want you to sleep._

“I don’t have time for that.”

_At least eat something, then. Preferably something that actually qualifies as a real meal_

“Cup Noodle is a meal.”

_It’s really not_

“If he’s really that determined there’s nothing we can do,” Freddie says. “He’ll wear himself out eventually.”

“He’s been drinking coffee nonstop since two,” Roger says flatly.

“I appreciate your concern,” John says, “but I really need to focus.” Roger yelps as he unplugs Shrek. “I’m sorry, guys.”

“He’s serious,” Roger says, aghast.

“Looks that way,” Brian says. “I wish he’d just take care of himself. I wish we could help him or something.”

“Well I never!” Freddie cries, sitting up abruptly to look between the two of them with a smug smile. “Are the two of you growing _fond_ of our resident student-turned-medium?”

Roger freezes. He meets Brian’s eyes across the room, and Brian looks just as disturbed as he feels.

“We’ll get back to haunting him eventually,” Brian says weakly.

“Sure we will!” Freddie replies, ever chipper. “Here’s another idea: we don’t continue haunting him since it’s not necessary and we’re not even ghosts in the first place. Instead we accept the fact that he’s been trying to help us ever since he moved in. It’s only fair that we admit we want to help him in return.”

The two of them blink at him.

Freddie smiles back.

John’s pen scratches against his notebook.

“Fine,” Roger snaps. “Whatever. He’s a good roommate, anyway.”

“Mhmm,” Freddie hums.

“He’s very courteous,” Brian says quietly.

“Yep. Cute as a button, too.”

Roger rolls his eyes. He doesn’t even bother answering. He just disappears, presumably to his own room, with a muffled _pop_. Brian follows suit a moment later.

Freddie watches John write for a long moment. When he appears to be lost in his task once more Freddie lays back down on the floor and resumes his duty of feeding the fire.

* * *

_“Falling in love with your roommates is probably not conductive to a good relationship. To quote Nicholas Cage and Cher’s hit film Moonstruck, don’t shit where you eat. Unfortunately we don’t really have the power to control that kind of thing one way or another, my loves.”_

* * *

John pauses as he reads that one, toast halfway to his mouth. It’s likely that he’s just hallucinating it due to a lack of sleep. None of them would write something so silly on this blog project of theirs.

He closes the page quickly and moves back to his coursework.

* * *

_“I suppose that some things can’t be avoided.”_

* * *

The end of finals is marked by John coming home and immediately falling asleep on the couch. Roger thinks long and hard about drawing a moustache on his face. Then he takes one good look at the way John’s eyelashes are fluttering and his lips are parted slightly in his sleep and thinks better of it.

He pushes the afghan off the back of the couch until he’s safely bundled up against the flat’s ever-present chill. Despite everything Roger’s grown rather fond of him. It wouldn’t do to have him catching another malaise of some kind.

* * *

_“It’s just being a good roommate.”_

* * *

When it finally happens John is pretty sure that he’s going crazy.

He’s just hanging out in Freddie’s room after taking his last final, sitting with his back against his bed. He’s got his bass in his lap and he’s polishing it with sure, careful strokes. He runs the cloth down the strings first, then the fretboard, then finally he runs it across the body a few times. When he’s satisfied he plugs it into the amp he’s hauled upstairs from his old room, tunes up and starts playing.

He goes through a few scales first, then old riffs he’d picked up from his dad’s rock albums, then finally he starts messing around with a few songs that are ratting around in his brain. Time slips away the way it always does when he has his guitar in his hands. The never-ending knot of worry that’s always tangled in his chest loosens somewhat and he can breathe again. The queasiness of anxiety recedes.

And then he hears the most beautiful voice he’s ever heard.

“A love like ours,” the voice sings along, “could never die.”

John freezes. His fingers fall away from the strings with a broken twang.

Behind himself, he hears a gasp.

He turns around. There’s a man sitting on his bed looking at him with as much shock as John feels. He recognizes his dark hair and warm eyes instantly.

“Freddie,” he breathes.

Freddie gasps. He takes a deep breath, seems to choke on it, and then gasps again. “Brian!” he screams.

There’s a thump from the direction of Roger’s room. _“Shit!”_ someone shouts.

“What the fuck,” John breathes.

“I don’t know,” Freddie breathes back. “I don’t fucking know.”

There’s a trampling sound of footsteps down the hallway and then the door is being flung open. Brian—and it _is_ Brian, exactly like he looks in the photos on Roger’s walls—jumps, startled by his own strength.

“Freddie?” he cries, still looking at the door. “I feel really weird.” He takes hold of the doorknob and swings the door back and forth a couple of times.

“You’re going to break it if you’re not careful,” John says, breathless.

Brian pales rapidly, staring at him with wide eyes. “What?”

“You heard,” John says.

“_You _heard.”

“Guys!” Roger calls from the hallway.

He comes skidding down the hall in a blur of blond hair. His socks slip on the wood floor, probably for the first time in literal months.

He crashes directly into Brian. The two of them go flying.

* * *

_I simply cannot stress this enough. If you are going to run indoors you have a responsibility to your surroundings. Please make sure that all fragile, mortal roommates are out of the way. _

* * *

“So,” Freddie says hesitantly.

Brian looks at him plaintively from beneath the rag-enclosed icepack that John is holding to his forehead.

“I don’t think you’re concussed,” John says. “But I’m no doctor. Maybe you should go to the hospital.”

“You’re fine,” Roger says. “Believe me. It’s just a scratch.”

“It doesn’t feel like just a scratch,” Brian says.

“Well, welcome back to the world of the living, I suppose,” John tells him. He pulls the icepack away briefly and then coos when Brian flinches. “Speaking of which, does anyone have an explanation for this?”

“Not really,” Roger says. “I was minding my own business, actually.”

Freddie raises his eyebrows skeptically.

“I was!” Roger squawks. “I swear. One minute I was trying to pull a textbook down and the next it was hitting me in the face.”

“Brian?” Freddie asks. “What were you doing?”

“Writing,” Brian says with a shrug. “Listening to you singing through the wall. Listening to John. That was it.”

“I could hear it too,” Roger says. “You’re really good, John.”

“Thanks,” John says, ears going red.

“Really good,” Brian says slowly.

“Stop it, guys.” He’s going fully pink now. “I’m still not over this, in any event. I can’t believe it.”

Freddie frowns. “We have to have broken the curse somehow. You’re sure nobody did anything? Nobody drew a pentagram in pig’s blood by mistake and made a deal with the devil? Nobody sacrificed any virgins?”

“Not that I’m aware,” Roger deadpans. “But you know, sometimes those things just kind of happen.”

“Brian?”

Brian frowns at him. “Why are you looking at me?”

“I don’t know. You were the one reading through that book.”

“I don’t know anything about it. Besides, wasn’t the curse supposed to be irreversible anyway? I thought that the only way to break it was if we found someone who completed us.”

The four of them frown and blink in thought. Roger scratches his head. Brian stares into space. John sucks on his lip. Freddie stares at John sucking on his lip.

“Well, I for one have no idea,” Roger says.

“Me neither,” John says.

“No,” Brian murmurs.

“Mmh,” Freddie grunts. “Well, maybe it will reveal itself in good time. Now, is there any food in this house?”

“I have noodles,” John says.

* * *

_“I guess things just work out sometimes. There isn’t always a rhyme or reason. Living or undead, corporeal or insubstantial, I love my roommates. I love everything about them. It was pure luck and coincidence, and I couldn’t ask for more in the world.”_

* * *

In a burgeoning witches’ coven in New Jersey, Sophia Milton stares at the blog that sits open on her laptop screen in blank-faced shock.

“Idiots,” she murmurs finally. “They’re idiots.”

* * *

_“I really just couldn’t be happier.” _

* * *

In the long-term, the four of them sit down to renegotiate the lease and add the study as a fourth bedroom. Freddie claims it as his own, setting up his bed so that the piano keys make up the headboard. John moves into his old room on the third floor.

In the short-term, the two of them share a bed for a few weeks.

That’s after the mad scramble homeward following the three of them revealing to their families and the local authorities that they are in fact alive. They have no good explanation and nothing that the world would believe, anyway. Roger, Buzzfeed Unsolved connoisseur that he is, ends up shrugging his shoulders at the police and calling it good.

“That’s it?” Brian asks skeptically. “You’re not going to make a statement? You won’t even think of an excuse or anything?”

“There’s no need,” Roger says through a mouthful of kebab. He’s rediscovered kebab since returning to the world of the living, and he’s tackling that fact with both literal and figurative relish. Brian’s nose wrinkles slightly as he talks through his food. “Stranger things have happened. People go missing all the time with no explanation.”

“We might as well say it was aliens,” Brian says.

“Are you kidding? They’ll be nocking down our door faster than you can phone home.”

Their return is followed by long visits to their respective families, and then those are followed by all of their parents and extended family dropping by with gifts and dishes of food every other day, usually just to fuss.

John doesn’t have to live off of noodles anymore.

In the slightly-longer-than-that term, John falls into an unexpected source of wealth.

The four of them flop down on the couch with a few beers and a bowl of crisps to watch John’s favorite underbudgeted reality show, _Untold Ghost Stories of Kensington. _

“You’ll like it,” John says. “The new episode came out yesterday. I got an early screening, but suffice to say I think that you’ll get a real kick out of this.”

Roger raises his eyebrows skeptically, squeezing himself into the space between John and Brian. “You don’t think we’ve had enough ghost stories to last us a lifetime?”

“Just trust me,” John says with a smile.

Freddie is watching him with a bemused smile, twisting his body sideways so that he can look at John head-on. “What did you do?” he asks suspiciously.

“You’ll see,” John replies.

“John,” Brian starts.

“Patience, you guys. It’s nothing bad, I swear. Watch.”

He presses play.

The title card flashes across the screen before an all-too familiar man appears. “Hello everybody, and welcome to another episode of _Untold Ghost Stories of Kensington,” _he says. “Today we’ll be examining one of the most haunted flats in the area.”

“Hang on,” Roger says, squinting at the screen. “Didn’t this guy come to shoot this show here a few months ago?”

“That’s the one, yep,” Brian says. “Huh. I’m surprised he didn’t completely rethink his career after his run in with us.”

“Normally I’d say you guys have quite high opinions of yourselves,” John says dryly, “but I actually watched that episode. Believe it or not, that’s the encounter that sold the network on picking it up for a full season.”

“You don’t say,” Freddie says.

“Mhmm. They were really quite in awe of all the flying shards of glass and the flaming curtains. I’m sure they all thought it was special effects, but just for the record I’d like to thank you for not welcoming me to the flat the way you welcomed them.”

“Oh, we couldn’t very well resist _you, _now could we darling?” Freddie coos. “You’re just far too cute.”

John grins. “Flatterer. Watch this.”

The man on the screen pulls out a very, very familiar device.

Roger’s jaw drops. “No way.”

“Researchers at Imperial College came up with this device not too long ago,” the man says. “It’s patented by a one John Richard, a researcher who’s worked tirelessly in the field of understanding the supernatural for his entire life. We’re lucky enough to have gotten access to the prototype prior to the show.”

“You didn’t,” Brian murmurs.

“The creators call it a Short-Range EMF keyboard. Shrek for short,” the man says, throwing in a wink on the end of the sentence.

“I did,” John replies. “I sold it to him, actually. He offered me a very generous price.”

Roger grins in disbelief at the screen.

“For the first time in history, this device will allow us to communicate directly with the dead,” the man onscreen says, plugging the keyboard into a laptop. “Let’s see what they have to say.”

He’s silent as he waits. They’re all silent, really. The four boys on the couch are watching with barely bated amusement.

The lights on the Shrek blink. Someone pushes the space bar a few times, then backspaces as if thinking about what they want to say.

“Please, spirits,” the man says. “Don’t be shy.”

The cursor blinks a few times before the spirit enters a long string of eggplant emojis.

* * *

_“We’re adjusting well to being roommates. I would say that no boundaries really ever have restricted the four of us: not death, certainly, and not life. It’s been a good time. And now, after all of it, miraculously here we are.” _

* * *

In the short term, they become fast friends. They become excellent roommates as well.

In the slightly-longer-term they resume their studies. In the slightly-longer-than-that they graduate, somehow.

And in the meantime, they start a band. The rest, as they say, is history.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As long as we’re getting fake-deep and stuff, some of you guys know I left tumblr fairly abruptly a few weeks ago. To put it briefly, I guess I’ve been reminded of why using social media like that should always be done with caution. Some people just want to take from you and hurt you. It’s a horribly ugly place to be in when you feel so turned around that you can’t even trust your own needs and feelings, even feelings like love and joy that you know without a doubt are true. Sometimes the only solution is to get out and recenter yourself, and maybe channel it into art later down the line.
> 
> But I guess to round up this depressing rant, that’s never been the experience I’ve had on this website. You guys are just lovely. Everybody I talk to on here is lovely. This is a different place; this is a supportive place, and I couldn’t be happier sharing my silly stories with you guys and knowing that you get something out of them. I’m so glad that we can all create and experience things together. 
> 
> So basically, thank you for reading this fic, thank you for reading this rant, thank you for being beautiful and wonderful and just incredibly kind. You’re all stars and I love every one of ya <3


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